Texas Tech's defense is bad. It was bad against Arizona State, a little less bad against Louisiana Tech and will probably be somewhere between less bad and oh-my-goodness-my-eyes bad 10 days from now against Kansas.

Eventually – and I promise this is true – the Red Raider defense won’t be bad. It might not happen this season or next. It might not happen under David Gibbs’ stewardship, during Kliff Kingsbury’s tenure or even within any of our lifetimes. But Texas Tech’s defense won’t be Yakety Sax-worthy forever.

Really.

You guys, stop laughing.

I mean it.

The question is how quickly and under what circumstances will the Red Raider defense turn things around. There are any number of possibilities, but I have three main theories regarding the when and how.

Even though Texas Tech is just two weeks removed from giving up 68 points to what I suspect will turn out to be an unremarkable Arizona State offense, this actually isn’t as far-fetched as it seems.

Phil Bennett’s first season as Baylor’s defensive coordinator was a step back for the Bears. The team went from allowing 30.5 points and 435.4 yards per game to 37.2 and 488.5 under Bennett. Statistically, almost across the board, Baylor was worse defensively in 2011 than it was in 2010 – passing yards allowed, rushing yards allowed, third-down conversions, explosive plays, red zone touchdown defense, sacks per game, you name it.

Sound familiar?

Bennett’s second season in Waco started off much like his first. The Bears opened with a blowout win of SMU, but allowed an extremely average Mustang offense to pile up a season-best 507 yards of offense in the process. Three weeks later, in another win, ULM scored 42 points and racked up 560 yards of offense. Then West Virginia put up 63 and 807, then TCU with 49 and 509, then Texas with 56 and 525 – all losses.

Finally, on a late October night in Ames, Baylor’s defense hit absolute rock bottom. Steele Jantz and the Iowa State Cyclones torched the Bears, scoring 35 points and piling up 557 yards on 102 plays.

Heading into November, Baylor was 3-4 largely because its defense was an absolute bleep-show, allowing 42.7 points and 554 yards per game.

Two months in, Bennett's second season was, unbelievably, even worse than his first.

Yet from that low point – somehow, someway – things began to improve.

Baylor won five of its last six games – wins over Kansas, No. 1 Kansas State, Texas Tech, No. 23 Oklahoma State and No. 17 UCLA – and was significantly improved defensively. By no means were the Bears all of a sudden elite defensively, but they were noticeably better and the numbers backed that up: 12 fewer points and 110 fewer yards allowed per game, two fewer touchdowns allowed per game, more turnovers forced per game.

It took 20 bad games and an embarrassing stretch of awfulness akin to Andy Dufresne’s crawl to freedom through a poop tunnel, but Bennett finally began to get results at Baylor. The team finished each of the next three seasons ranked fourth or better in the Big 12 in scoring and total defense.

In case you’re wondering, Gibbs’ 21st game at Texas Tech will be Oct. 29 at TCU.

I shouldn’t need 350 words or a Shawshank Redemption reference to explain this theory.

Tubby Smith inherited a raging tire fire when he took over the Texas Tech basketball program in 2013. The program was six years removed from its last NCAA tournament appearance and had finished ninth or worse in the Big 12 for five consecutive seasons. The roster was a mess.

Somehow, Smith squeezed some measure of improvement out of his first Red Raider squad. The team still finished ninth in the Big 12, but its six conference wins marked the most for Texas Tech since 2007-08.

Smith signed his best recruiting class in Lubbock that year, adding two junior college transfers and five promising high school prospects to the program’s roster. And the Hall of Fame coach leaned on those newcomers heavily during his second year on campus. Devaugntah Williams led the team in scoring (9.9) and was fourth in starts (14) and minutes per game (24.9); Zach Smith led the team in starts (17) and minutes per game (30.9); and Norense Odiase (21.5), Keenan Evans (20.8) and Isaiah Manderson (15.9) all averaged more than 15 per game.

The youth movement resulted in on-court regression. Texas Tech won just three Big 12 games in 2014-15, finishing last in the conference and suffering an ignominious season-sweep at the hands of TCU. The Red Raiders finished last in the Big 12 in scoring (60.9), shooting percentage (40.4) assists (356) and assist-to-turnover ratio (0.81)

Those newcomers grew up in a hurry the next season. Smith guided the Red Raiders – featuring a sophomore core of Evans, Smith, Odiase and Justin Gray – to the program’s first winning record since 2009-10 and first NCAA tournament since 2006-07.

Much like Texas Tech basketball in 2014-15, the Red Raider defense is leaning on a significant number of newcomers this season. Could that pay similar dividends for Gibbs in 2017 as it did for Smith in 2015-16?

[ Insert shoulder-shrug emoji here. ]

If the Red Raiders don’t make a Phil Bennett/Baylor midseason jump in 2016 or show Tubby Smith-like improvement in 2017, I suppose the hope is that the Red Raider defense will slowly climb its way back toward respectability by incrementally improving the talent and depth on that side of the ball.

Given the very early returns on defensive recruiting under Gibbs, it seems somewhat safe – as safe as anything when it comes to sports – to pencil in steady progress if he and his staff are allowed to stack recruiting class on top of recruiting class on top of recruiting class. But would slow and steady progress be enough after more than five years of disastrous defensive results? Given the current level of fan discontent, two more years of porous defense would make for a very bumpy ride.